


Stomach Pains

by brokenblue5



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Appendicitis, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Has Appendicitis, Other, can be seen as klance, concerned team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenblue5/pseuds/brokenblue5
Summary: Lance gets Appendicitis, and his team helps him out.





	Stomach Pains

A-Appendicitis 

Stomach Pains

At first, the pain wasn’t bad. It was rather mild really, so Lance didn’t say anything. He’d just go to sleep and say something in the morning if it was still a problem. 

Morning came and the pain was still there. There was an ache not much worse than it had been the night before in his stomach. As he tumbled out of bad, he didn’t hold back his wince. His head pounded solely in one spot as if he was being hit in with a sledge hammer over and over.Then he remembered that Shiro had gone through worse, so he couldn’t complain. 

Keeping one hand on the wall, Lance made his way to the dining hall for breakfast. When he arrived, he found the team already digging into their food goo.

“Hey, Lance,” Hunk said rather happily. He was a morning person. Pidge on the other hand just let out a low grumble from behind her computer. Her food goo sat on the table, untouched. That just wouldn’t do, so despite the pain that he was in, he walked over to Pidge. He grappled the computer from her and pushed her food towards her.

“Do not make me spoon-feed you, Gremlin,” Lance said sternly. The youngest among them was just as much Lance’s little sister as the younger sister he had at home. He had promised himself that he would protect her and all of his teammates. She simply let out another grumble and started eating. 

Satisfied, Lance took his place next to Keith and dug into the food that Hunk had set out for him. 

However, the Cuban boy stopped after just a couple of spoonfuls. If he was being honest, he didn’t really feel like eating. The ache in his gut had not faded, and his head was still pounding. He could almost feel the fever setting in. Yet, his sudden shivering went unnoticed by the team. 

Then Allura set down her spoon and clanked it gently against her dish. Everyone’s heads shot up to attention. 

“Paladins, today we have mission. We will be venturing into the forest of the Planet Yulnoran so that the Plethnaz race will join the coalition. Their only request was that we collect a plant with special healing properties that only grows on Yulnoran. The five of you will be going on this mission, and Coran and I will stay behind just in case you get into any trouble. Any questions?”

There were none, so everyone but Lance returned to their breakfast. The blue paladin picked up his bowl and threw his goo into the machine that got rid of the bacteria in it so that it could be eaten again. It seemed cool at first, but then the idea that they were consuming food that others had stuck their used spoons in…

He sat back down at the table until he deemed the amount of food that Pidge had consumed as appropriate, he handed her laptop back to her. She, of course, went back to typing away at if furiously.

Once he got back to his room, Lance slumped in on himself. This had to be the worst time for them to need to go on a mission. He knew that he should tell his teammates that he should stay behind because he was sick. It didn’t feel like he was sick though, not really. Hi stomach just hurt,his head pounded, and he kept getting hot and cold flashes. Okay, so maybe he was sick, but he didn’t feel like he normally did when he was sick. 

Then his stomach gave a lurch and he was dry heaving with his head bent over the trashcan in his room. Allura picked then to blare her voice over the loudspeaker, “Paladins, be ready in the hangars in 10 doboshes.” The throbbing in Lance’s skull became sharp, stabbing pains. Still, he foolishly ignored it and went to pull on his paladin armor. 

By the time that the 5 paladins were trekking through the forest, the worst of the nausea had set in. Hard shivers wreaked havoc on his body, and he just felt so tired. 

Lance wasn’t expecting a sharp pain to suddenly flare up in his lower abdomen. They were already a half-days walk from where their lions had landed. With all of the planet’s thick foliage, there was no way that the lions would have made it through the forest.

Groans of pain threatened to spill from Lance’s lips as he staggered after his teammates. His side just wouldn’t stop hurting and neither would his head. Despite the thick but moveable armor, Lance found himself shivering. He was lagging behind in all of his discomfort.

Surprisingly, it was Keith who was the first to notice that something was up. A brief glance back at the others showed them all keeping up. Then he saw Lance staggering forward as if he were drunk. Keith could see the blue paladin’s effort in the unnatural amount of sweat dripping from his forehead. However, it was the presence of a dark flush of red across Lance’s cheeks that was worrying Keith. With the tone of Lance’s skin, Keith shouldn’t be able to see the red of his cheeks so clearly. Lance must’ve been really hot. 

On one of the occasions that Lance looked up from where he was focusing on the ground to keep from throwing up, he saw Keith lean up to whisper in Shiro’s ear. Moments later, Shiro was shooting Lance a worried gaze and they were taking a break.

Lance plopped gratefully and ungracefully onto the forest floor. He pulled out a water pouch from the bad that he had nearly forgotten he had and gulped it down greedily.

“We’re not too far from where the plant grows now, so after this break we’ll probably be able to make the rest in one stretch. For now, rest up. We move out in 5 minutes,” Shiro said calmly. 

Keith was expecting a witty quip about Shiro sounding like a general, but Lance barely had the energy to lift his water to his mouth. A retort was off the table for the moment. That was the moment when everyone else started to catch on. A silent conversation occurred then that Lance was not privy to. Hunk would be the one to approach him.

As they started moving again, Hunk walked next to Lance. He made sure to keep his pace slightly slower than normal so that the obviously struggling Cuban could keep up. 

“Hey, man. Are you okay?” Hunk tried to keep the worry from creeping into his voice, but he failed. 

Lance just shrugged off Hunk’s worry with a bright smile and an, “I’m doing mighty fine, my man.” Despite seeming fine, Hunk swore he could hear a slight shake to the boy’s voice. He also noticed the slight twinge at the corner of Lance’s eye after every step. Nor did he miss the way that his best friend’s arms were hovering over his stomach and how he kept pushing them back down. 

Hunk walked ahead to quietly report his findings to Keith who attempted to inconspicuously spread the news by making it look like casual conversation. Just in case, Hunk was sent back to distract him. 

As much as Lance loved his best friend, he wished that Hunk would just go away. The way that the Samoan was talking about holidays they had spent with each others’ families was going to make Lance cry. The pain that radiated from his stomach alone was enough for him to just want it to stop, but he kept walking. Hunk was steadily taking about the soccer game that Lance and one of his older brothers, Marco, had played that had been epic. He tried to listen, but then his thoughts wandered to his siblings. 

Who was playing with Louis so that Mama could cook dinner? Was anyone making sure that Sophie ate her dinner? Did Veronica get her first boyfriend or girlfriend yet? Had he missed Cecile’s quinceanera? How was Marco doing in college? Was his Mama okay? Were any of his family even alive?

He didn’t even realized that there were tears in his eyes until his vision blurred and he tripped over a root in front of him. As he crashed to the floor on the side that was causing him pain, he let out a short scream. Then he just let the tears flow.

“-nce. Lance! What’s wrong?!” Keith voice was frantic as he stripped Lance of the armor around his torso. Lance just let out a weak groan and laid on the forest floor in defeat. There was no more hiding it. 

“Guys, is it just me, or is his stomach swollen?” Fear crept into Pidge’s voice as she spoke, and the others murmured their agreement. It did look like part of his abdomen had swollen considerably.

“I think I know what’s wrong, guys, but I pray that I’m wrong,” Shiro said. He pressed on the swollen spot gently but with pressure. “Tell me if it hurts when I remove my hands.” With that, Shiro released the pressure. A shout of pain erupted from Lance, and he found himself pulling away from his teammate and curling himself into a ball.

“S-stop. Please. It hu-hurts,” whimpered Lance, and while he would’ve been embarrassed in any other situation, he was in too much pain to care. He suddenly lurched to side and vomited his dinner from the night before as well as the little bit of food goo he had consumed at breakfast.

Shiro swore under his breath. “Well, that explains the fever. He has appendicitis, guys.”

“What can we do about it?” Keith asked. He was trying not to freak out, but he felt so useless. He wasn’t good at comforting people, and he sure wasn’t a doctor. 

“At this point, I don’t know, guys. Usually, you’d just get your appendix removed. If you don’t, it leads to some sort of infection that’s fatal without treatment,” Shiro said, trying frantically to recall what he knew.

“What about the plant that we were sent here for? Maybe we could use part of it like mint leaves in tea. The water would probably dilute any negative effects it might have on humans,” Pidge thought aloud.

“Pidgee’s plan souns good,” Lance said, slurring slightly. He then proceeded to slip into unconsciousness. 

Surprising himself, Keith volunteered to stay back an watch Lance. Hunk went off to find the things he needed for a fire, Shiro went to find the healing plant, and Pidge went to find some drinkable water. Their water pouches were already drained.

Then Lance’s eyes fluttered open. “I ‘member. You cradles me in yur arms. Twice now,” Lance babbled, holding up three fingers. Keith couldn’t help the small smile that slipped onto his face. 

Hunk arrived back in the clearing first with firewood and started a small fire. Then came Pidge with water sloshing in a metal canteen. She held it over the fire to boil. Shiro was the last to arrive with leaves tangled in his tuft of flopping white hair.

Lance was still babbling, but it was becoming more incoherent by the second. Shiro ripped off a petal from one of the plants and stuck it in the canteen of hot water.

Keith lifted Lance's head up just enough for Hunk to trickle the water from the canteen into Lance's mouth. It just dripped from the corners.

"C'mon, Lance. You've gotta swallow this. It'll make you feel better," Hunk said soothingly. Lance didn't respond. He kept his lips shut tightly. It made sense, because the scent wafting from the water bottle was enough to make even Shiro's stomach unsettled. 

"I bet you cant drink the whole bottle," Keith said hauntingly. Hunk shot him a warning look but stopped when Lance merely smiled and replied.

"If I do, you get… bathroom duty for a week." The boy's voice was quiet, and the others had to strain to hear it. Keith realised that he would do bathroom duty for the rest of their time in space if it meant that Lance would just drink the stupid healing water.

"Fine," Keith pretended to grumble unhappily. 

Hunk tried once more to get Lance to drink the water. This time, the Cuban sucked down the water like his life depended on it, and technically it did. 

"Ha! I… I win, Mullet," he said weakly. Then he was unconscious. They could tell that the plant had worked with how quickly the tenseness slipped from Lance's body and his face went slack. In just another day, things would be back to normal and this would all be forgotten.


End file.
